Energy Department Names New CIO

With the prospect of an IT budget cut looming, the agency names an insider to oversee its IT reform efforts.

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The Department of Energy has named Bob Brese, its former deputy CIO, as its new CIO, replacing Michael Locatis, who joined the Department of Homeland Security in April as assistant secretary for cybersecurity and communications.

The appointment of Brese, effective July 1, was announced in a June 18 internal memo by Energy secretary Stephen Chu. The memo included a number of other management changes in the department. The Department of Energy, with an IT budget of $2.1 billion in fiscal 2012, faces a 4.9% decrease in fiscal 2013.

Brese, who had been serving as acting CIO, last week provided an update on the department's IT reform initiatives. Those included launching Energy.gov in August 2011 on an open source content management system and cloud hosting environment, which is expected to save more than $10 million annually.

The Energy Department is migrating its public key infrastructure (PKI) this month to a shared service provider, with anticipated savings of $1 million annually, Brese said. And it has partnered with the General Services Administration in the use of a cloud-based tool for IT portfolio management, to be implemented in November.

Brese was previously deputy CIO for IT with the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and he led that agency's enterprise architecture, capital planning and investment control, records management, and federal IT services program. Before joining NNSA, which is part of the Department of Energy, Brese served as a submarine officer in the Navy.

The Department of Energy operates approximately 20 national laboratories and technology centers. Earlier this week, Lawrence Livermore National Lab's Sequoia supercomputer was ranked first in the world in overall performance.

The Office of Management and Budget demands that federal agencies tap into a more efficient IT delivery model. The new Shared Services Mandate issue of InformationWeek Government explains how they're doing it. Also in this issue: Uncle Sam should develop an IT savings dashboard that shows the returns on its multibillion-dollar IT investment. (Free registration required.)

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